


with teeth

by Amber



Series: Create Something Every Day! (October 2018) [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, October Prompt Challenge, Spoilers, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 14:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/pseuds/Amber
Summary: Prompt 8: Vampire.(MAG120 spoilers.)





	with teeth

\- What have you done to me, Gerard says — no, not says. His mouth is moving out of habit, but that's not where the sound is coming from. Jon hears it in his mind.

"Excuse me?" For his part, Jon is still very capable of speaking. And walking, and reading, and — dreaming. Life without a heartbeat is so far not all that far removed from life with one. "I don't see how this is my fault. You demanded I burn the page; I did so." 

\- Right.

Gerard doesn't look impressed. He stretches out his arms as if to encompass himself and in doing so, refute Jon's claim.

"I did!" protests Jon, and this is all so mind-bendingly impossible that he can't help but retreat into stuffy defensiveness. "It's on tape. Though believe me, it was painful enough that it's not an experience I'm going to forget any time soon."

\- Painful, says Gerard suspiciously. Why would it be painful.

Jon blinks. "I suppose because, I'm the Archivist, and all your knowledge, is, well—"

\- No. Nah. Gertrude never talked about anything like that.

There's a moment of contemplative silence. Jon glances through the window of his office door, wondering if anyone had noticed Gerard come in — but Peter Lukas doesn't seem to have quite the ability to see everything that Elias did, even if his time in the position seems to have brought its own set of problems. Namely: Martin isn't in again today. Jon tries not to worry about it, when he's already made sure to see for himself that Martin wasn't trapped in his apartment. What more could he do?

\- Where did you do it, Gerard asks flatly, refocusing Jon's attention.

"Here?" Jon looks around his office, trying to remember. The time immediately before the Unknowing and his... apotheosis, is still a little hazy. "Here precisely," he says, moving to one corner of his office. "Over this metal filing cabinet."

The tilt of Gerard's head reminds him of a raven.

\- And what'd you use. Matches?

"Ah, no," says Jon, fishing in his pockets, and then when he turns up nothing, crossing to rummage through his satchel. "I have a zippo. Usually I just use it for smoking, but it did the job just as well — here."

Gerard stares at the lighter he's pulled out. Then he laughs, but it's humourless, tired.

\- You stupid motherfucker.

"I beg your pardon?" Jon responds, huffily. 

\- That's a Web artifact, Gerard says flatly, and now that Jon looks closer, yes, there is a spider pattern on the silver shell. If he thinks about it he does recall that perhaps he hadn't exactly purchased this in a shop — but he finds it very difficult to think about, to hold onto the thought, even now.

Gerard is rubbing his face.

\- I woke up down there. He points down, at the floorboards. No, below the floorboards, in the tunnels. 

"I don't," says Jon, "I don't understand."

\- Look, do you know what a vampire actually is? Gerard asks, and when Jon shakes his head he sighs, a horrible whistling noise. They're waste, he says. Supernatural by-product. When you combine too many entities, too many powers, something happens, and the confluence isn't pretty. The book of the dead, marked by Hunters, in Beholding's place of power, the gateway downstairs, the _fucking_ lighter... of course you made a vampire. Just that somehow the vampire is also _me_.

Jon shivers, a horrible cold trickle down his spine. Experiences the familiar sinking feeling of having made a terrible mistake, and that mistake costing someone their life. Sasha, he thinks. Tim. And now Gerry. Will he ever get it right?

"You are," he points out quietly, "Alive, at least."

\- Yeah, by certain definitions, Gerard responds scathingly. He shakes his head. I may not be in horrible pain anymore, and I guess I've got to be grateful for that, but this isn't any less shit. I can feel it itching my brain. The compulsion. The _hunger_.

Jon thinks of his own sickening understanding that he needed to feed on statements to live, that those statements in turn became nightmares that he would use to torment the statement-givers for eternity, and yes, yes, he knows a little something of what it is to crave what disgusts you.

"Blood," he says quietly, remembering Trevor's old statements. "It's blood you need. Well, I'm not using mine. Have at." He meets Gerard's eyes, gaze steady, expression determined, and sees in response a glimmer of surprise.

\- Well, says Gerard, doing that head tilt once more. Appreciate the offer, truly, but I think I need it to be relatively fresh. And yours ... isn't.

"Oh," says Jon. "Of course."

\- I could really use a cigarette, though?

Jon hesitates a moment, and then nods. "Of course," he says, fishing out his battered packet of Silk Cuts. "Come on." They can smoke in the courtyard, two miserable undead men.

"What will you do now?" he asks Gerard, as he lights the cigarette and draws the harsh, relaxing smoke into his lungs.

\- Dunno. 

"I." Jon looks up at the grey September sky. "I have a spare room, if you need a place to stay. And I can — perhaps I can help you find a food source, one that doesn't harm anyone."

\- Aren't you supposed to be all, watching without interference? Gerry asks, something wry in his tone.

Jon thinks of the great Eye in the sky. He thinks of Martin crying on tape. Of Peter Lukas' mocking regard, of Elias in prison and Melanie's rage and Basira's tired resignation. He thinks of Tim and Daisy and Sasha. He thinks of his dreams, how good and right it felt to watch them, how horrifying. Of the statement predicting Gertrude Robinson's death. He thinks of being kidnapped and tortured and brutalized, of fire and worms and Mike Crew's vertigo, of lying inanimate in hospital for weeks until he finally forced himself to look directly into that vast and eternal pupil and see the futures written there.

"Not any more," he says distinctly, and his grin has teeth.


End file.
